Kandy
The mid-grown district around Sri Lanka’s old royal capital, and conventionally identified as the site of the island’s first commercial tea planting after coffee failed in the 1860s. Its teas sit between the brisk high-grown and the heavy low-grown styles.
History on this page: TeaHQ synthesis
TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
This district’s description dates something — a founding, a first planting, a period of expansion. The label above says on what basis, and it applies to the historical statements rather than to the elevation, climate or soil claims below, which carry their own confidence separately.
Elevation
Recorded at 600–1200 metres.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
When it is picked
Mid-grown and moderate in everything, including season. The quality swings that define the high-grown districts are damped here, so the district produces a consistent tea year-round rather than a peak worth waiting for.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
How the name is written
Also transliterated as kandy. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.
Other teas recorded from here
Other growing regions in Sri Lanka
The neighbouring districts are the useful comparison: they share a country, a grading convention and often a cultivar, so what differs between them is closer to terroir than anything a cross-border comparison can isolate.
Sources
- TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ
This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No external document stands behind the elevation band, the climate note or the character described above, which is why each carries its confidence in the open.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Kandy vs Dimbula — The mid-grown and high-grown middle of Sri Lanka, and the pair that explains what ‘mid grown’ actually means in the cup. Kandy is also where the island’s tea industry started, after coffee failed in the 1860s.